WikiLeaks

The latest news regarding Julian Assange, held at Belmarsh maximum-security prison since April, pending his proposed extradition to the US, to face trumped-up espionage charges regarding WikiLeaks’ work as a publisher, making available classified US documents – including the Guantánamo files, which I worked on with WikiLeaks as a media partner – for which there is a compelling case that the public should be informed. Assange’s role was as a publisher, and his proposed extradition is a chilling assault on press freedoms, and freedom of speech. The UK government shouldn’t be going along with it, but in fact they seem to be working very closely with US officials, and at Assange’s latest case management hearing his conditions of confinement seemed to be taking their toll, as he was frail and often appeared confused.

My response to the outrageous and alarming decision by the US Justice Department, under Donald Trump, to charge Julian Assange of WikiLeaks under the Espionage Act, and how fundamentally it threatens press freedom, plus my call for the British government to refuse to extradite Assange to the US, and also to move him from Belmarsh, where his mental health is deteriorating.

Linking to and dicussing my recent half-hour radio interview with Chris Cook on Gorilla Radio in Victoria, Canada, in which we discussed the eighth anniversary of the release of classified military files relating to the Guantánamo prisoners by WikiLeaks, and also discussed the situation faced by Julian Assange since he was arrested in the UK after Ecuador withdrew the asylum it granted him nearly seven years ago.

On the eighth anniversary of WikiLeaks’ release of classified military files from Guantánamo, on which I worked as a media partner, I recall how I got involved, I reiterate the significance of the files, and I call for the release from custody, in the UK and the US, of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.

My analysis of the significance of Julian Assange’s arrest in London last week, and why – regardless of what anyone may think about Assange personally – it’s hugely important that there is concerted resistance to any effort by the US to clamp down on media freedom by pretending that Assange and WikiLeaks were not engaged in journalism, but in some sort of espionage.

My call for support for whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been imprisoned for refusing to testify in a Grand Jury case against WikiLeaks. I have a particular interest in the information Chelsea made available, as it included classified military files from Guantánamo, which helped to establish how much of the so-called evidence from the prison was based on lies.

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   This Wednesday, May 17, Chelsea Manning — formerly known as Bradley Manning — will be released from prison, in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where […]

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next two months. Great news from the White House, as, in the dying days of his presidency, Barack Obama has commuted the 35-year sentence of Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), the […]

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2700 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo for the next three months.   I’m currently in the process of updating my six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, which I first created in March 2009, and have updated five times since — in January 2010, […]

On August 16, Mustafa Faraj Muhammad Muhammad Mas’ud al-Jadid al-Uzaybi (ISN 10017), a Libyan prisoner in Guantánamo who is better known as Abu Faraj al-Libi, became the 59th prisoner to have his case reviewed by a Periodic Review Board. The PRBs — which include representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, […]